


Mother Moon

by lifelesslyndsey



Series: Mondkind [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fairies man, M/M, Magical Flower Babies, Mondkind Series, Slice-Of-Life fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifelesslyndsey/pseuds/lifelesslyndsey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s twenty-six when something weird happens. </p><p>	To be fair, weird shit is always happening. It happens so often, it isn’t even weird anymore. Ogre in the river? Just another Tuesday. Harpies nesting in the storm drains? Well, he didn’t have any plans for the weekend anyway. Vampire coven swooping through? Must be March. </p><p>Mondays though. Mondays are apparently the day of magical flower babies.  Really. What is Stiles life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd. So, you know. Mistakes are mine. This was kind of written randomly. It started out as a fairy gifting Stiles with a bigger penis, and then this happened. I don't know how a penis becomes a baby, but whatever. Lets roll with it. Could become ongoing. Depends on interest
> 
> This is a Slice-Of-Life series, and not intended to be written in a full-story manner. Just...little snippets. In chronological order, probably. Unless otherwise noted.

He’s twenty-six when something weird happens.

 

To be fair, weird shit is always happening. It happens so often, it isn’t even weird anymore. Ogre in the river? Just another Tuesday. Harpies nesting in the storm drains? Well, he didn’t have any plans for the weekend anyway. Vampire coven swooping through? Must be March.

 

So...when Stiles says something weird happened, he really means that shit cray.

  
  


Spring has just begun, the bitter chill in the air fading away.  The brilliant green of the northern California Forest never really faded, but it’s brighter now, more alive with...with nature and stuff. A long time ago, Stiles would have figured it was just birds and animals and stuff, but no. No, that is not why the forest seems more awake in spring. It’s fairies.

 

Not like...not Peter Pan fairies. Or Harry Potter fairies. Actually, they remind him more of like Tolkien Elves, except their shorter, and more child-like.  Kind of like the princess in Never Ending story, really. Just hot enough to make you feel like a fucking creep.

 

Long story short, Stiles got busy on some trolls faces with a UV lamp he stole from Lydia Martin. If said troll happened to be holding a freaking Fairy in it’s meaty paw, well. Stiles hadn’t considered it.  It was more like ‘troll eating a kid, kill it with a tanning lamp’.

 

Stiles wasn’t even sure he was capable of surprise, but he was wrong. So wrong. Fairy. A freaking Fairy. Reaching up, she brushed a delicate, pale hand along the troll’s stone arm, and it melted in a rush of ashy-sand.

 

“...that takes care of that,” Stiles found himself saying, because seriously, he might have brought a sledge hammer, but he hadn’t been looking forward to using it.

 

She beamed up at him, all bright eyes and moon-pale skin. “You saved me.”

 

“Ah well. It’s what I do. What I’ve done. Did.  I’ve only done it once, the whole saving you thing, but I think that still qualifies as a did.” There was a rustle, and a howl, and chills raced up Stiles's spine. Derek. The Alpha-Howl was unmistakable. Unmistakably broody. “You should probably go; the pack is coming. Your on Hale Territory, and the Alpha can be...um. Territorial. With his territory. Is your ring nearby? I can help you get back to it.”

 

“You know what I am.” Her mouth curved up into a dimpled smile, as if she was amused by him.

 

Stiles hesitated, and then nodded. “I wasn’t sure, but I’ve seen that mark before, and it’s always associated with Fairies.” A delicate knot of golden wire encircled her wrist, twisted and shaped into a symbol Stiles had only ever seen in the Bestiary. “Funny though, because I read only the...only the...Queen wore it.” Stiles blinked.

 

Her smile grew. “That is true. Clever humans. My ring is just that way,” she pointed through a little copse of densely grown trees. “Will you still help me?”

 

Somehow, Stiles deeply doubted she needed help. Queen. Fairy Queen. “It’s what I do. Did. Do. Sure, lets go.”

 

She took him by the hand, which Stiles had not been expecting. Her palms were cold in his, but she held him with a strength he wouldn’t question. “Kind, clever humans,” she hummed, as they cut across the moonlight. “I owe you a debt.”

 

“What? No. Nah. I mean, stuff like that. Saving people, hunting things.” Wait...nope .That was a line in Supernatural.  Possibly appropriate though, you know. Saving people, and hunting things was pretty much what Stiles did. “What I mean to say is that I was just doing what was right. And that doesn’t deserve a reward.”

 

“Think of it not as a reward, but as a thank you. You saved me, and for that I am thankful. It is within my power to grant many things.” The Fairy Queen’s eyes softened. “One wish I’ll grant, but I cannot bring to life what was once dead, send to death what lives, or create love where there is none.”

 

“Genie rules, then.” Stiles blinked, and blew out a breath. There were only a few things he’d ever think to wish for, but no. Stiles knew you couldn’t bring the dead back to life. “I’m sorry. I...I can’t think of anything I want badly enough to wish for.” That didn’t go against the Genie rules.

 

Before them, the ring of trees began to glow, and eerie, luminescent blue. “Then I shall choose for you, Stiles.” Raising his hand, she pressed a kiss to his palm, and the gesture was strangely intimate, but innocent. “You wish for family. You wish not to be so lonely. You wish to see your mothers face once more.”

 

“That’s...three things.” Stiles swallowed. “And also woah, highly invasive. Um. But...you can’t fix any of those without breaking your own rules. So. No wish. Really. No debt.”

 

“Kind, clever and impudent.” She grinned at him, looking for all the world older and wiser than anyone Stiles had ever met. “To tell the Queen what she can, or cannot do. Be happy, human. Be well.”

 

“You....too?” But she was already gone.

 

Something ruffled the underbrush at the edge of the clearing, but the clouds had rolled over the moon, and Stiles couldn’t see what it was. “Derek?” He tried not to sound hopeful. Sounding hopeful was the first step to being eaten by a yeti, or something equally awful.

 

“Here.” His voice carried from across the clearing, as the clouds shifted again. A beam of moonlight filtered through the trees. Derek was staring down at the ground, with wide red eyes. “ Stiles. Come here.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, by the way.” He trudged across the clearing. The forest seemed louder now, filled with the night time orchestra of chittering coos, and scurrying animals. There was even a whimper from a tiny raccoon or possum .  “Only took out a freaking troll on my own, and all.  Where the hell were you guys? Did you guys get the other two?” Stiles figured they did. If they hadn’t, Derek wouldn’t have been there with him.

 

“Stiles,” Derek said tightly, closing his eyes. “Shut up.”

 

Stiles hesitated; Derek had stopped bothering to shut him up years ago.  Now it was more fond-and-exasperated sighs, and eye rolls. Something was wrong.  “Dude.”

 

“What did the Fairy queen promise you?”

 

“Nothing! I told her I didn’t want her wish, okay? That I didn’t need it. And then she left.”

 

“No she didn’t. She granted you the wish. What did she say?”

 

Stiles swallowed. Derek didn’t look angry, per-se. He looked...concerned. The slight downturn of the left eyebrow said as much. Which was obstinately worse, really.“...that she’d pick for me.”

 

“Stiles.” Derek’s face was grim, as he looked downward. Oh. So...that was the whimpering. Not a racoon then.

 

It was coming from the flower. The giant white flower that began to unfurl, even as they watched. “What.” One by one, the petals unfolded. Stiles brain went off line, as he stared down at the tiny thing nestled inside, it’s fingers curled around a petal, as it suckled at the thumb of it’s other hand. It was...new, he figured. Not because he knew much about babies, more because it was kind of all wrinkly and wet, and maybe a little bloody. “What. What even. What.”

 

“It smells like you.” Derek crouched down by the flower, his hulking mass blocking the wind as it swept through the clearing. “Give me your shirt.”

 

“Right. Of course. Yeah.” Because the baby was wet and naked, and they probably shouldn’t...be. He peeled off his flannel button up, and handed it to Derek.

 

But Derek didn’t take it. He was frowning down at the...the flower. Scowling really. “It’s attached.”

 

“It’s attached to what,” Stilles croaked. Panic flitted at the edges of his calm. This called for a freak out, a Level Five Freak Out, for which Stiles would save for later when he was alone and could not be mocked.

 

Derek looked up at him, eyes still ringed in red. “The flower.” The duh was silent, but heard none the less. “We’ll need to cut the cord.”

 

It was attached to the flower. By an umbilical cord. Because this was Stiles’ life. “Oh yeah. Of course. That makes total sense. I’ve got a knife in my truck, I can go grab...oh my god what are you doing don’t eat it!”

 

There was a sickening break of flesh, and then Derek growled. “I’m not eating it. I just cut the cord.”

 

“With your teeth.” A hysterical laugh burst through Stiles mouth before he could stop it. Blood was smeared at the edges of Derek’s mouth, and across his teeth. “Oh my god. Oh my God, Derek. It’s a...it’s a....” A magical flower baby. What.

 

Derek took his shirt, as Stiles gaped and panicked. He watched as Derek lifted the baby carefully from the flower, and wrapped it with practiced hands. And then, with no warning, he shoved it unceremoniously into Stiles arms.

 

“Um. No. Nope. Do not want.” He held it out, away from his body, as if it might contaminate him.”Return to sender. Control Z. Abort.”  Maybe, given the circumstances, abort was the wrong word. Mostly, he was afraid of contaminating it. Stiles did not do with the baby. He did not. Babies were weird, and small and breakable and Stiles was large, and wild and flail-y. Flailish. He flailed. “Derek!”

 

With an abrupt snarl, Derek grabbed him by the wrist, and forced the baby back, against his chest. “Support the head,” he snapped, eyes flashing a violent red.

 

Stiles cupped the baby against him, the entire length of it nor even spanning his forearm. He was pretty sure it was small, by human standards, even for a new one.  It squirmed, mouth suckling it’s tiny thumb as it burrowed into him. “What. Um. What do I...what do I do with it?”

 

“She,” Derek corrected sharply. “It’s a girl. She smells like you. She’s yours, Stiles. She’s your baby.”

 

Blinking, Stiles felt his heart lodge in his throat. “This...this is not what I wished for.”   
  
He should have just asked for a bigger penis. Seriously.

 

“What did you wish for?” Derek looked at him, brows drawn. “You said nothing.”

 

“I didn’t, not really. So she said she’d choose for me, but I’m pretty sure mystical moon baby was not one of the options.” The baby cried, a tiny broken wail, and Stiles kind of felt like doing the same. He swallowed hard, around the lump in his throat. “What do I do?”

 

Derek stared at him,and then the baby, for a long silent moment. “I’ll drive you back to your house.”

 

What then, Stiles didn’t ask, but the question lingered there anyway.

  
  


Stiles didn’t live with his dad. That would be weird. He was a twenty-six year old software engineer. It would just be sad if he lived with his dad. If he bought the house next door when it went up for sale, it was no ones business but his own.

 

Derek parked the jeep in the drive way. It wasn’t his blue baby, no that had died several years earlier. Stiles hadn’t had the heart to buy anything that wasn’t a jeep though. The new Wrangler served him well, with it’s 4 wheel drive and decent-ish gas milage. It didn’t hurt that it came with an I-Pod dock and a reinforced roll bar.

 

His fathers car was parked in the adjacent parking lot, but Stiles knew he was fast asleep. Derek cut the engine, and took the baby from Stiles arms.

 

He didn’t argue.

  
  


The house was dark, but he didn’t bother to flip the lights on.  Derek could see just fine, and Stiles knew his way around. The baby whimpered again, little gaspy cries escaping from where it’s face was buried in the crook of Derek’s arm. He looked like he’d held a baby before, all practiced ease and gentle hands.

 

“Baby things,” Stiles said dumbly. “We’ll need...baby things. Bottles. Formula.”

 

“I can get them,” Derek offered, but no. No that would mean Stiles would be left alone with the baby and just. No. That...yeah. Nope.

 

Derek hesitated for reasons Stiles couldn’t fathom, except for maybe he knew what Stiles was thinking. “Go to Deatons. Ask for goats milk, and the bottles they use for kittens.”

 

“....goats milk.” Stiles wasn’t arguing per-se because it was pretty obvious that Derek knew more about this baby shit than he did, but really, goats milk?

 

“She smells human, but she was born from a flower. I think it would be best if we kept it as natural as possible. Humans give infants with allergies goats milk.” He nodded, as if agreeing with himself. “Well?”

 

Stiles found himself hovering near the door, suddenly awkward, suddenly...worried. That thing smelled like him, after all. “Are you...are you good here? With it?”

 

“Her.” Derek raised a single brow at him. “I could go instead, if you want to stay here with her.”

 

“No! No, I mean. You look like you have this handled. I’ll...I’ll be back.”

 

*

 

He gave Deaton a very brief overview of the situation. “The fairy queen gave me a magical flower baby. Derek said I needed goat milk and cat bottles.”

 

Deaton’s bland smile never wavered as handed over the goats milk, and tiny little bottles. “Here,” he added, thrusting a little white envelope into Stiles’ hand before he could leave. “It’s a mild sedative.”

 

Staring at him for a long moment, Stiles pocketed the pill. There were reasons he liked Deaton. “So, I’ll bring it by later then?”

 

Smiling his creepy smile, Deaton simply nodded. “Please do.”

 

*

 

 

Derek had the baby swaddled in his shirt, and tucked safely into Stiles’ gaming bean-bag when he returned home. He’d dressed in his police uniform, the one Stiles had washed after they chased the banshee through the sewer last week. Derek had a terrible tendancy to leave his disgusting laundry at Stile’s house, under the excuse that Stiles was better at getting blood out. Which was totally true, but not the point. Stiles wasn’t his girlfriend, dammit. He barely did his own laundry half the time.

 

The sun had began to rise, casting the sky in shades of orange and purple, as he kicked off his shoes by the door. Derek was cutting up a bath towel into medium-sized squares with Stiles good scissors. “Diapers,” he said gruffly, before Stiles could even ask.

 

He took a moment to mourn his towels - they were 100% egyptian cotton, before remembering the alternative to towel-diapers right now was no diapers, and yeah. Nope. Totally worth ruining the good towels.

 

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Upon the word mother, Stiles felt his stomach drop. “Christ. She doesn’t have a mother. She’s a magical moon flower baby. I don’t even. What do I even. Derek!”

 

“Go into the kitchen, and warm the milk. Not in the microwave. Open the can, and place it in a pot of water on the stove. The milk should be just above room temperature. Fill the bottle, and bring it back.”

 

Stiles could do that. He could do that so hard. He’d rock that bottle. “Right.”

 

 

He knew what Derek was doing of course. Giving Stiles directions, as to keep him from panicking. It had worked in the past, but it had been battle plans, not bottle plans. He was staring at the warm can, and tiny bottle when Derek stepped in..

 

Wordlessly, Derek slipped the baby into his arms, and set to work on the bottles.  He sat at the table, overly aware of the tiny human in his arms. He held his breath when it shifted, choked on his own heart when it whimpered, and felt the bottom of his stomach drop out as it’s tiny little breath made a warm spot on his chest.

 

A baby. A freaking baby.

 

“Here.” A bottle was thrusted at him, and Stiles took it more on reflex than anything else. “Hold her head up a bit, thats it. Now just rub the nipple along her lip. She’ll do the rest.”

 

To his surprise, the baby did. She latched onto the bottle instantly, tiny fists clenching in the loose flannel fabric. “Whoa, someone's hungry.”

  
  


“Growing from nothing to a baby in a span of a few moments probably builds up an appetite,” Derek said, after a moment. “I saw the flower. I saw the shoot, saw it push right up through the dirt, Stiles. I saw...I saw her grow into a baby from a seedling.”

 

Derek sounds awed, more so than Stiles has ever heard. It made him jealous in a strange way, that Derek had the chance to see such a strange and miraculous thing, and Stiles missed it. Missed the growth of his...of the baby.

 

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” The question comes out quiet, fear lurking in at the edges of his voice. He’s accepted that there is now a baby in his possession. An honest-to-god living, breathing, totally dependant tiny person. Born from a flower. “She’s so small. She can’t weigh even six pounds.”

 

“Four and a half. She’s probably premature, by human standards. But her breathing sounds okay, and she smells healthy.  We’ll take her to the hospital tom----”

 

Stiles twitches, dislodging the bottle from the babies mouth. He manages to get it back in before she can cry again, and counts it as a win. “Hospital, what? Why not Deaton?”

 

“She’s not an animal. She’s a human baby. She needs to see a doctor, one who can make sure she’s healthy and whole.  Plus, babies need...baby care. Blood work, and screenings, and birth certificates. Social security numbers.”

 

That is so far beyond the realm of consideration right now that Stiles doesn’t even know what to say. He is honestly rendered to silence. He is wordless. He cannot even the English Language. Instead, he blinks stupidly up at Derek, who’s mouth is still talking about infantile jaundice, and lung-development in premature babies and what. What?

 

The back door is flung open unceremoniously, reminding Stiles that it was now Sunday and Sunday meant breakfast with dad before his shift.

 

His dad stands in the kitchen doorway with a blank look on his face. His eyes flicker from the baby, to Stiles, and even make one round to Derek before returning to the baby.

 

“I found her on the front porch,” Derek says in his usual gruff tone. “Not even half an hour ago. Just wrapped up in that shirt, still bloody.”

 

“Jesus Christ,” Sheriff Stilinski says, dropping down into the chair. “Stiles is it...is it yours?”

 

“She uh....” Stiles swallowed because. Because she was his. She’s his mystical flower baby he didn’t ask for and he has no idea what to do. “Yeah. Yeah I think so. There was a girl, about seven or eight months back,” he adds, nearly forgetting what Derek said about the baby being premature. “I lent her that shirt after uh. After. She didn’t have a jacket. I never got her name.”

 

It’s the best story they can come up with on such short notice, and his dad even looks as if he buys it. His dad also looks painfully disappointed. “I thought I taught you better than that. You took a stranger home, Stiles? Didn’t even get a name, didn’t even wear protection!?”

 

“I did!” Stiles protests because he would have, if this scenario were even remotely real. “It must have broke.”

 

“Get your fucking shoes on,” his dad snaps, and instantly Stiles feels five years old. “Derek, call this in; abandoning an infant is a serious crime. Take my cruiser to the station, and start the paperwork. The mother is probably in pretty bad condition if she just gave birth; if she’s near, we’ll find her. I’ll take Stiles and the baby to the hospital.”

 

 

Derek leaves to start a manhunt for a woman that doesn’t exist.  Stile’s dad makes him sit in the back seat of the jeep, in the middle, and drives like an eighty year old asian grandma.  He can see the way his teeth clench in the rear-view mirror, jaw ticking.

 

“Dad, I didn’t know,” he says, in a hushed voice. The baby is asleep in his arm, a thin line of milky drool escaping the corner of his mouth. “You gotta believe that if I’d have known, I would have....this never would have happen.”

 

His dad deflates, shoulders dropping. “I know kid. It’s just a lot to have dropped on you, all of a sudden.” He barks out a laugh, and shoots Stile a quick smile in the mirror. “But I guess you know that better than me. Shit. Shit. You’re a dad now.”

 

Suddenly, he’s infinitely glad his father took him to the hospital and not Derek because he can’t help the way he starts crying. A dad. He’s a dad.

 

To a fairy magic flower baby.

  
  


*

 

To his horror, the police show up at the hospital. Derek isn’t one of them. They take statements, ask for a description of the woman in question. They even take the flannel shirt as evidence.  

 

The baby is poked and prodded and plucked to the point of serious pissy-ness. She’s weighed, and measured. Blood is drawn, feet are stamped. They wash the blood from her skin, leaving her pink and fresh. Paperwork is brought, declaring her Baby Stilinski, because Stiles can’t be asked to think of a name right now.

 

By the end of it, Stiles is pissy on her behalf, half-ready to slap the next hand away. She’s tired, he’s tired; he just wants to take her home now, but her dad took the jeep, and Stiles has no idea where he went with it.

 

He doesn’t wait long though. John returns with crinkly plastic Walmart sacks in hand. Baby supplies. He comes bearing a soft pink sleeper and the tiniest pair of socks Stiles has ever seen. They have tiny pink bat signals on him that make him want to hug his dad extra hard next time he gets the chance.  

 

“Sorry it took me so long. I had a hard time getting the car seat in right.” Car seat. There is a car seat in his jeep now. Instantly he can’t help but worry if a jeep is safe for kids. The idea that it requires a reinforced roll bar is now horrifying where it had once been comforting.

 

The rest of the day passes in a blur. The pack doesn’t come, but Stiles isn’t offended. He knows without a doubt that Derek scared them off. Stiles is thankful; he can’t handle that mess right now.  

 

His dad hangs around until he simply cannot. Work of his own making calls him away; there are reports to be filled and paperwork to be filed. Derek steps in as his dad steps out. “You should be holding her.”

 

The baby is in her car seat, where she has been since they arrived home from the hospital. She’s sleeping; Stiles doesn’t want to wake her. His dad had picked her up once to change her, and feed her but took one look at Stiles and slipped her back into the seat.

 

“She’s sleeping.”

 

“Her head will be weird shaped if you leave her in that all the time. And she’ll get a bald patch.” Derek stares at him, judging him, silently asking him if he wants to be the father of the oddly-shaped bald baby. Stiles doesn’t really want to be a father at all, so he’s not sure how to answer it. “She smells sour.”

 

Stiles frowns at that. “Dad changed her before he left---”

 

“No not that. She smells unhappy. You need to hold her Stiles, you need to be bonding---”

 

“Maybe I don’t want too!” It comes out sharp and sudden, and he nearly chokes on the words, but they’re out there now, they’re out there, cold and hard and true. “Maybe I don’t want her.”

 

Stiles thought he wouldn't be surprised. He really did. The fairy thing threw him for a loop, the baby thing really should have been the icing on the surprise cake, but it’s not.

 

Derek slaps him.

 

Derek slaps him so hard, his ears ring. It’s not werewolf hard, it’s human hard, but it still fucking hurts. His cheek smarts, and his eyes water, and Derek is standing over him with a scowl so fierce, Stiles honestly wants to cower.

 

He scoops the baby up, and stalks past Stiles without so much as a fucking word, and yeah. Stiles knows he deserved that.

 

He waits an hour, waits until he knows the baby will be hungry again before slipping up the stairs, bottle in hand. It’s more of the goats milk; the doctors told him he’d need to find a formula for her soon, though. He supposes there’s something out there that will work, probably something vegan, and organic, and horribly expensive.

 

Derek is in the guest room, which smells like fritos and Pack (as it’s where they usually sleep when they crash at Casa De Stilinski Deux. He’s shirtless, and the baby is naked too, snuggled up on it’s belly, against his chest.  Derek’s hands span her entire tiny body, leaving nothing but her head peeking out beneath his palms.

 

He’s scent marking her.

 

There are a lot of things Stiles could say. He could apologize. He could say he didn’t mean it. Instead, he does his best to explain in two simple words. “I’m scared.”

 

Derek seems to accept this, if his terse nod is anything to go by. “She didn’t ask for this either.”

 

Setting the bottle down on the nightstand, he sits on the edge of the bed, and slips out of is filthy shirt. “Can I hold her?”

 

“You don’t need to ask; she’s yours.” Derek settles the baby in his arms, and hands the bottle to him.

 

He’s still scared shitless. Still has no idea what he’s doing. His face still hurts where Derek smacked him. But she’s tiny, and pink, and peeing on him and Stiles figures there are worse things in the world, than babies. And now it’s his job to keep her safe from them.

  
  


*

 

“It’s been three weeks,” Scott says, staring at him from across the table. He’s holding the baby; the pack can’t get enough of her. “You can’t keep calling her the baby.”

 

“I will name her when I name her.” Scott is not the first to harass him about this. Stiles doesn’t think it’s something to be rushed  into, thank you. You don’t just name a pet the first day you get it; you have to learn it’s personality first. After all, his mother had his name picked out before she even got pregnant, and look how well that ended up.

 

Scott makes a face.  “Baby Stilinski is a horrible name. It is literally the worst name ever.”

 

He looks up a Scott over his lap top. “I could name her after me.”

 

“You know what, Baby Stilinski has a nice ring to it. It worked for that girl in Dirty Dancing.” Baby Stilinski takes that moment to Linda Blair vomit all down Scott’s shoulder.

 

“Dammit,” Stiles mutters, pushing up from the table. He makes gimme-hands at Scott until he relinquishes the kid. “I told Derek I thought that organic formula was crap. She’s spitting up twice as much since we switched from the goats milk.”

 

He’s half-way through wiping the baby off when he notices that Scott is staring at him, and grinning like a loon. He doesn’t have to ask what. Scott knows. “Nothing, nothing. It’s just. You look good with her.”

 

*

 

It’s four days later that Stiles is just...at his end. The baby is sick. He swears it. But the pediatrician said she was fine, suggested Stiles change her formula (again). Even Melissa said it was normal for babies to have issues with certain formulas, but Stiles knows it’s more than that.

 

“I can’t keep anything in her,” Stiles tells Derek over the phone. He’s exhausted. The baby hasn’t stopped crying all day, and her stomach is hard and to be frank, she hasn’t pooped in two days. These are not things Stiles ever thought he’d have to worry about, but people need to poop, and she isn’t. It’s all very concerning. “I don’t know what to do.”

 

“Stick her in a warm bath,” Derek suggests, and one day, Stiles is going to ask where his baby-fu came from. Derek is a baby whisperer. Stiles does not fucking get it. “I’ll be over in half an hour. I...I have an idea.”

 

Derek shows up with...with barley. Which is not what Stiles was expecting. “I had a human cousin,” he explains, as he pulls a pot down from the rack over the kitchen island. “He was really collicky.” Stiles has no idea what that means, but it doesn’t sound pleasant, so okay. “Couldn’t keep anything down. So my Oma, she gave him barley water. It helped a lot.” He paused, mouth pinching. “There is a possibility, given her origin, that she won’t tolerate meats or dairy protiens.”

 

“...because Fairies only eat things that grow from nature.” Stiles feels like a fucking idiot, because he knew that. He fucking knew that, but here he was torturing a baby with fucking milk. “Jesus Christ.”

 

“You couldn’t have known. She smells human, Stiles. She doesn’t smell like any fairy I’ve ever seen. It’s just...there isn’t any real way of knowing. A human baby can’t live off barley water; too much water for infants can make them sick. But...there’s no way of knowing.”

 

“Unless we try.” It doesn’t sound promising. He doesn’t want to make her more sick.

 

Derek riffles through the bags he brought. “I picked up some rice milk too. I don’t think we should do soy just yet, not unless we have too. Oma...” Derek takes a breath, and Stiles realizes this is the first time he’s ever heard Derek really talk about his family. “She thought it messed with development. Something about estrogen, I don’t really remember. We could do Almond milk later, but right now it’s probably not safe because nut allergies---”

 

He looks down at the baby in his arms, and replays everything Derek has just said. “You said we.”

 

Derek freezes, hand hovering halfway to the cupboard, clutching the unopened rice milk. His face is perfectly blank. “I’m...sorry. That was presumptuous. I just...you called. You asked, and I just figured...”His words fade, leaving him scowling, like he isn’t quite sure what he figured.

 

“No no. I um.” Stiles heaves a great, and tired sigh. “You’ve been...great. Like, you are my baby-Yoda. Dad is totally freaked out, no lie. He gets that ‘I’m going to break her’ look every time he holds her, and I kind of get the idea that my mom did most the baby stuff when I was born. But you...you are like, the baby-guru. Where did all this random and crazy baby-knowledge come from, dude?”

 

Fiddling with the stove, Derek takes a moment before speaking. “Pack dynamic, as you’ve probably figured out, is very involved.  Cubs, babies...they’re not really just for parents. Babies are for family. Pack is family. I know I’m over here a lot, as is the rest of the pack. It’s instinct, just...a deep-seeded need to protect and nurture.  Growing up, there were always babies around. Sometime more than one. Peter...” Derek clears his throat. “Peter’s wife, my Aunt Amelia, she’d had twins, a baby and a cub, a few months before the fire. I was old enough then to look after them. It was a privilege...I...remember being excited. I read a lot, about babies, about what to expect...”

 

A strange rage bubbles up inside him. He will forever and always hate Kate Argent for what she did, but to think that there were helpless babies in that fire, too little to even know their own name...it makes him want to bring her back so he can murder her himself.  

 

It also makes him hold the baby a little tighter.  Stiles knows how scary the world is. Knows about all the monsters. But...but sometimes, it’s the humans that scare him the most.

 

“She’s your pack,” he says when the silence ticks on too long. It’s kind of a wonderful thing to say, makes his heart slow, his fingers unclench. If the baby is part of the Hale Pack, she will be the safest she can possibly be. “She’s your pack baby.”

 

“The first pack baby,” Derek agrees, back to his flat monotone. “It’s a big deal. If she were a wolf, she’d be Alpha in Line, probably.”

 

“But she’s not even yours,” Stiles says, without really thinking. Derek looks away suddenly, jaw clenched and ticking and Stiles feels like he was just punched in the face. “Oh. Oh. Derek.”

 

Derek’s hands tighten around the handle of the pot, as he lifts it from the stove. “I know she isn’t really mine,” he says tightly, with his back to Stiles, drawn taut and tense.

 

His heart is beating a million miles a minute, and he knows Derek can hear it. If there is anyone who wanted a family as bad as Stiles, it would be Derek. If it had been Derek who saved the damn fairy in the woods, Stiles thinks he would have been granted the same wish. He probably would have gotten a litter.

 

He wants it to be true, just then. Wants Derek to feel the same thing Stiles does, when he looks down at her, feels her little hand curled over his finger. Maybe Derek already does. Stiles hopes so. He doesn’t have it in him to turn Derek away from that kind of feeling.

 

“Maybe she kind of is,” Stiles finds himself saying, slow and unsure. “I mean, you watched her grow Derek. I can’t even say as much. You touched her first. You cut her cord with your teeth. I think she might kind of be yours too.”

 

He watches as Derek strains the barley water into a bowl, before putting it into the fridge to cool. “Okay.”

 

“Okay?” Stiles echoes, boggling. “Okay. I have given you partial rights to my child, and all you have to say is okay. That is severely underwhelming.”

 

Derek rolls his eyes, and drops down into the adjacent kitchen chair. “You look like shit. You haven’t been sleeping at all, have you?”

 

“She hasn’t been sleeping,” he says with a shrug. People who aren’t parents probably do not understand the logic behind that. People who aren’t parents get to sleep all they want. But Stiles is limited to the baby’s schedule, and the baby doesn’t feel like sleeping. “It’s fine though. I mean, not sleeping isn’t exactly new. I’ve actually nearly got the bugs worked out of this new program. If I get it done by the end of the week, I’ll get a sweet ass bonus.”

 

“Let her stay at my house tonight.” The request very nearly blind-sides Stiles, who can only blink and gape.

 

“What. No. What? Why can’t you just stay here?” He hasn’t taken her out yet. At all. She’s still new! New babies can get...sick, and stuff. Seriously, he read it on the internet. And now Derek is asking to take her out and not bring her back? What the holy hell.

 

“You look like you're about to fall over. You need solid sleep. Even if I stay here, you’ll be up every time she so much as whimpers.” Damn him and his logical logic, Stiles wanted to punch him in his scowly little face.

 

“...all her things are here. You don’t even have a crib.”

 

“You don’t even have a crib,” Derek countered, and yeah okay maybe that was true. But he had the moses basket Melissa had brought over, and it was just way more convenient to plop that on the bed beside him. “Please?” And that is just it, Stiles can’t even handle that shit. Derek Hale does not say please.

 

Except for how he apparently does. Stiles says yes.

 

“But I want to come over too. So I can check the place out.”

 

Derek scowls, but really, when does he not? “You’ve been to my apartment. Besides, she can’t even crawl. It’s not like she’s going to get under the cupboard and drink a bunch of Drain-O.”

 

Stiles stares at him, horrified. “Jesus, what if she ate bath salts and goes all nom-nom-nom on someone’s face!? I don’t remember the world being such a terrible place when I was little.” 

*

 

Derek seems weirdly hesitant to let Stiles into his condo.Which is strange, because it’s not like Stiles has never been there. It makes him curious, painfully so. Like, what the hell does Derek have to hide?  “See. Nothings changed since the last time you were here. Go home. Get some sleep. Pop that xanax Deaton gave you forever ago.”

 

Stiles isn’t even going to comment on how Derek knows that. Werewolf noses were better left unquestioned. “Your office door is closed. Why is your office door closed?”

 

“Because it is,” Derek replied tersely, stepping in front of him and oh that is just it. Stiles holds the baby out, knowing Derek will take her on reflex, and slips past him just fast enough to push the door open.

 

His first impression is green. Very green, shades of forest and sage and kelly. It takes him a moment to realize he’s looking at trees. Carefully painted trees, with skillfully shaded leaves, and a tangle of branches. It’s a forest, spread wide across the four walls. There is a peek of river between the trunks near the floor. When he looks up, it’s the night sky, complete with a yellow moon and a million tiny stars.

 

But it doesn’t stop there.  In the middle of the room is a crib, a modest dark-wood crib with soft green bedding. There’s a dresser to match, with a flat pad thing on top Stiles thinks might be for changing diapers (he tends to just use the coffee table...or floor...or whatever flat surface is closest).  The room isn’t really big enough for anything more, but the floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the closet doors make it look wide and open.

 

“...you’re never getting your deposit back.” It’s not the right thing to say, but honestly Stiles has no idea what that is. This is a nursery, a brilliant nursery that looks just like the forest the baby was born from. “Derek. This is...wow. Is this an instinct thing?”

 

Derek nods, short and terse. He has the baby pressed up against his chest again, her little face nuzzling his neck. She’s gained a pound since birth, but it doesn’t show in the way Derek’s palms still blanket her. It makes Stiles worry she might not ever be big enough for the world, and it’s such a weird worry, strange and worrisome in it’s own right. How can he protect something so tiny?  
  
Derek steps into the room, filling the tiny space in a way Stiles can’t, though they aren’t much different in height, if not stature. “Providing a...a safe place for the new cub is part of the Alpha’s job. It’s a...a way of saying thank you, my Opa told me. For bringing new life to the pack.”

 

It’s beautifully done. He doesn’t know if Derek painted it, or had someone else paint it, but the concept was so...so thoughtful that Stiles feels maybe a tiny bit choked up. “I don’t have a nursery.”

 

“I wanted to ask you if I could...if I could help you, whenever you started but then...you didn’t.”

 

“It’s only been a month.” Which, wasn’t much of an excuse. It had been a freaking month, and Stiles hadn’t even named her. Well, he mostly hadn’t named her. Sometime, when no one was listening, he called her Mondkin, like the princess in Never Ending Story. But that wasn’t much of a name (it was still better than Stiles’ real name though).

 

Derek leaned against the doorway, holding the baby against him now with one hand. He looked ridiculously at ease, like he was made to carry around tiny babies. Not like Stiles who was still in the habit of holding her like she might explode.  “Stiles, do you want her?”

 

He spun around so fast he tripped on his own foot. “What?”

 

“Do you want her?” Derek’s face was unwavering as he stared Stiles down. “Because you treat her like she’s not even real. Like she’s not going to be around tomorrow, or the next week. You haven’t even taken her out of the house. You haven’t named her, haven’t made her a place in your home. In your life. Do. You. Want. Her.”

 

“Yes.” His heartbeat steady, as he knew it would. It wasn’t a lie; he did want her. “I just...things like this don’t just happen.  She fell into my life in a matter of moments and I...I...”

 

“Feel like she could disappear just as fast?”

 

And God, Stiles hadn’t even thought to be afraid of that until Derek said it but now he feels like he can’t breath, like there’s a great big invisible hand crushing down on his chest. What if the Fairy Queen finds out, what if she knows that Stiles didn’t want her gift. What if his little flower fades away? What if the Queen unmakes her?

 

He’s being pushed, forced to the ground, and stripped of his shirt. Suddenly there’s something warm and squirming pressed against his chest, and Stiles clings, all that fear manifesting around him. He clings like someone might take her right then, and rocks back and forth while they both fucking cry.

 

“I want her,” he gasps, because the idea of losing her has driven that home.  He wasn’t sure before, not if he wanted her, but if he could have her. If she really could be his, his little flower baby, petal-soft and pink. She’s...she’s a little bit of him, a little bit of his mother, she’s his and he can have her. She’s everything the fairy promised and Stiles just...doesn’t know what to do with that. But he wants her.

 

He wakes up in Derek’s bed. He’s slept there before, injured and bleeding. Isaac is beside him, cradling the baby in his hands, little black tendrils seeping beneath his skin. “She’s okay,” he whispers, knows Stiles is awake. “Her stomach just hurts is all. I’m helping her sleep.”

 

Stiles blinks, and tries not to choke on the lump in his throat. “Thank you.”

 

Isaac rolls his eyes. “Go back to sleep Stiles. Everythings fine here.”

 

So Stiles does. He falls asleep, and dreams of the sky, and his mother and flowers and wolves. When he wakes hours later, the moon is high in the sky, pouring silver light through the window. It’s Derek now, sprawled out beside him, with the baby curled up on his stomach, bathed in the moonlight.

 

“Mondkin,” Stiles whispers, and it slips out with a helpless laugh. “Moonchild.”

 

“What about Luna,” Derek whispers back, not quite asleep as Stiles had thought.

 

Luna. Moonchild. Stiles swallows. “Yeah. Okay.”

 

 

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Daddy!Derek peeple. Daddy. Derek.
> 
> also, I removed the previous second chapter, and intend to post it as a second part of the Mondkind series. 
> 
> Every part will be it's own story, with it's own sending. But the story is never really over, because Luna will never really be done growing.


End file.
